March for Life observes 40th anniversarySantorum addresses crowd for first time, says marchers stand 'for love in a world of death.'

Crowds on the National Mall gather for the March for Life Friday in Washington,… (BRENDAN HOFFMAN, Getty…)

January 25, 2013|By Colby Itkowitz, Call Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — — Standing still for hours in subfreezing temperatures wasn't easy for the Rev. Joseph Kanimea, who left his home in Fiji — where it was in the 80s Friday — just a little over a month ago for a new life in the Lehigh Valley.

Defrosting in the warmth of a reception room on Capitol Hill, Kanimea had just attended his first March for Life in Washington, D.C. — an annual gathering of anti-abortion activists that marked the 40th anniversary of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.

And while the bitter cold wasn't easy for a man accustomed to a tropical climate, Kanimea, a priest at Holy Family Catholic Church in Nazareth, described his amazement that the crowd was filled with so many teenagers and children. He wasn't expecting, he said, that the younger American generation would be so engaged in the anti-abortion movement.

It's a cause — what he calls "the sanctity of life, the sacredness of life and the holiness of the body" — that he espouses in his sermons.

"It is something we have to advocate, you have to keep on advocating," he said. "It's a lifetime commitment."

Church members from across the Lehigh Valley as well as students from the region's Catholic schools joined the ocean of people on the National Mall clutching handmade and screen-printed signs with anti-abortion messages. One group held hot pink posters that read, "Conceived from rape. I love my life." Another man mixed political messages, holding a sign calling for the end to abortion, war and assault weapons.

One 4-year-old girl clung to a sign that read, "I'm a pro-life generation." Asked why she was there, she said proudly, "To save babies."

Gina Favocci's parents, Christine and Robert, both 32, of Nazareth, came to the march for the first time and brought their two toddler daughters. They'd always been anti-abortion, Christine Favocci said, but the re-election of President Barack Obama, whom she calls the "most pro-abortion president we've ever had" made them want to come to show their support.

To Gina, her bright-eyed, blond daughter, she explained abortion is when babies are allowed to be hurt in the mommies' bellies.

"She asks me why is it OK to hurt a baby in the mommies' bellies, but it's not OK to hurt a baby when it's out of the mommy's belly. And I don't have an answer for her," Favocci said.

Taking the March for Life stage for the first time despite a long and well-known history of outspokenness on abortion was former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum. The mere mention of his name prompted an eruption of cheers for the failed presidential candidate who became a star in 2012 among social conservatives.

Santorum, in a bright red winter coat adorned with bumper stickers from his nonprofit Patriot Voices, thanked the freezing crowd for being there "to give a sense of warmth to this city that is a cold city these days."

"You are the voice of the voiceless. You are those who stand for love in a world of death," he said. "One day we will triumph because love and truth always triumph."

Jim Toolan, 73, a deacon at St. Thomas More church in Salisbury Township, said it was nice to have Santorum there to "give witness." Santorum, as he often did on the campaign trail, spoke at length about his ill daughter, Bella, whom the Santorums were told to abort, but did not.

Toolan has been attending the march for more than 30 years. It's an event that always inspires him.

"For us veterans, it's nice to see everyone here," he said, "to renew ourselves and get charged up another year."